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Speaker 1: We should dismantle the fact that indigenous peoples are seeing

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Speaker 1: as research subjects and areas of expertise rather than the

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Speaker 1: scientists and experts themselves.

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Speaker 2: From Fudro Media and PRX, It's Latino Usa, I'm Maria

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Speaker 2: no Rosa today, Jessica Hernandez and why we need Indigenous

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Speaker 2: environmental science For Jessica Irnandez, becoming an environmental scientist seemed

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Speaker 2: like the most natural thing in the world. She had

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Speaker 2: grown up learning about animals and plants from her grandmother

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Speaker 2: in Joahaka in southern Mexico. She loved going fishing with

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Speaker 2: her father, where she always seemed to learn something new.

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Speaker 2: Jessica felt that she already had so much to share

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Speaker 2: with other people who were interested in the environment. But

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Speaker 2: when she started studying marine science, things weren't so simple

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Speaker 2: all of a sudden. As an indigenous immigrant woman at

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Speaker 2: a university in the United States, the knowledge she brought

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Speaker 2: to the classroom was mocked or dismissed. Her professors had

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Speaker 2: no interest in what she and, by extension, her family

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Speaker 2: and her community had to say. Still, Jessica knew that

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Speaker 2: she belonged any place where the environment was being discussed,

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Speaker 2: not just for her love of nature, but because she

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Speaker 2: had seen how being shut out of the conversation had

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Speaker 2: been so harmful to her Suppotheq and Mayachorti communities. So

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Speaker 2: she finished her degree, but didn't stop there. She got

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Speaker 2: a master's and then a PhD in environmental and forestry sciences.

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Speaker 2: She learned the formulas and specialized terms used in academia,

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Speaker 2: and she confirmed what she had always known, that what

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Speaker 2: her grandmother and father had taught her was also a

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Speaker 2: form of science. Now, Jessica has collected her family's stories, historically, accounts,

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Speaker 2: and other case studies in the book Fresh Banana Leaves

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Speaker 2: Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science. She hopes it's going

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Speaker 2: to change the way we think about environmental science. In

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Speaker 2: her own words, here's the story of doctor Jessica Hernandez.

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Speaker 1: When the Olpaducci vigrie. My name is Jessica Hernandez, and

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Speaker 1: I'm from the Maya, Chorti and Sapotech nations of Salvador

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Speaker 1: and Whaka, Mexico. I'm an indigenous environmental scientist. I currently

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Speaker 1: holds a position at the University of Washington, Boto, where

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Speaker 1: I teach introduction to climate science. I also conduct research

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Speaker 1: on environmental physics of climate science, and I wrote a

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Speaker 1: book entitled Fresh Banana Leaves Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science.

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Speaker 1: One of my fondest memories is just being able to

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Speaker 1: go visit my grandmother in Wohaka, Mexico, and she just

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Speaker 1: taught me a lot about our environments. She liked to

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Speaker 1: go walking, which he was able to walk, and she

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Speaker 1: would just teach me about the landscape, the mongols, and

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Speaker 1: also about the animals. My dad loved fishing, and because

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Speaker 1: he was a fisherman, that's how he was able to

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Speaker 1: sustain his family in the Salvador, because he was the

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Speaker 1: eldest and he used to fish. And I think that

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Speaker 1: I always thought my dad was like really smart because

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Speaker 1: like we went fishing, he didn't need a rod, right,

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Speaker 1: Like he could make his own rod out of the

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Speaker 1: materials that he could find. He could make fish nets also,

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Speaker 1: and I always thought that was really cool. And I

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Speaker 1: noticed that when I was like in the elementary school,

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Speaker 1: my dad was learning how to read with me, and

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Speaker 1: that always made me question, like, oh, my dad is learning,

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Speaker 1: like what does that mean? But my dad sharing that

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Speaker 1: journey with me as I was learning how to read

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Speaker 1: kind of inspired me to be like, oh, and my

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Speaker 1: dad is like doing this with me, maybe I should,

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Speaker 1: you know, look into school. And I think that that's

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Speaker 1: what motivated me to love education, because my parents had

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Speaker 1: been denied education and they instilled in me like, oh,

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Speaker 1: you know, if you can get education, go for it.

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Speaker 1: Being introduced to the environment from the lens of my

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Speaker 1: grandmother and my father, it kind of fostered that interest

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Speaker 1: in me to want to learn more about your environments.

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Speaker 1: I always noticed how my communities and my relatives back

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Speaker 1: in my ancestral lens were always dismissed, right, Like if

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Speaker 1: they wanted to advocate for something in the environment, they'll

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Speaker 1: be like alsos indios, no savign like they don't know anything.

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Speaker 1: They're you know, ignorant, Like what are they talking about?

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Speaker 1: And I think that that's something that my grandmother staled

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Speaker 1: in me because she was like, oh, you have the

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Speaker 1: opportunity to pursue education, even my parents, right, Like my

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Speaker 1: dad didn't get any Western education, right because he was

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Speaker 1: busy as a child trying to support his family after

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Speaker 1: his father passed away, so he never stepped foot in

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Speaker 1: a classroom. And I guess I will be my naiveness

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Speaker 1: because I thought, you know, like, oh, I could bring

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Speaker 1: in my family's teachings into the I could bring it

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Speaker 1: to the professors, They're gonna really accept it. But when

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Speaker 1: I went into the classrooms, oftentimes, you know, I was

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Speaker 1: ridiculed by professors because there will be like, oh, you

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Speaker 1: need to cite this, you know, you need to go

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Speaker 1: towards peer review articles, or you know, is this Jessica's theory?

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Speaker 1: Where is this information coming from? When I was sharing

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Speaker 1: testimonies or lift experiences that will hint towards the topic

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Speaker 1: we were discussing, but because it wasn't published or it

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Speaker 1: didn't have any scientific credibility, it was like dismissed and

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Speaker 1: oftentimes ridly culled by my professor's right. Even as a

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Speaker 1: graduate student, I had to sit in classrooms while they

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Speaker 1: were laughing like I had just like set a joke

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Speaker 1: or something, and I was like, okay, but that just

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Speaker 1: shows you how professors, you know, especially why scientists can

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Speaker 1: be dismissive towards indigenous peoples. Right, And that was me,

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Speaker 1: somebody who had privileged to be in that classes. So

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Speaker 1: I could just imagine how they would treat our communities

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Speaker 1: if they want to our communities and they will share

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Speaker 1: all these stories as well. Right, you'll probably laugh.

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Speaker 3: As well.

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Speaker 1: To see how they were very dismissive, kind of like

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Speaker 1: made me understand that, you know, what I had ambitioned

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Speaker 1: environmental sciences to be as a field wasn't necessarily what

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Speaker 1: it was going to be. The sciences have the lowest

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Speaker 1: diverse populations of students and even professors. I don't recall

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Speaker 1: indigenous professor throughout my undergraduates. So even in my graduate degree,

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Speaker 1: like if I wanted to work with an indigenous professor,

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Speaker 1: I had to go to like the Department of American

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Speaker 1: Indian Studies or the Department of Ethnic Studies. But it

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Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily within the College of the Environment or the

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Speaker 1: departments of the Environments. But my grandmother always told me, like,

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Speaker 1: if you can learn how the colonizer, so you know,

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Speaker 1: the green goo speak, you can help us advocate for

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Speaker 1: our environments. Right because now, like they're not going to

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Speaker 1: dismiss our way of knowing because we can use that

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Speaker 1: western terminology. Personally, I prefer to use the term indigenous

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Speaker 1: science as opposed to traditional ecological knowledge because oftentimes I

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Speaker 1: think that traditional ecological knowledge has this connotation that it's

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Speaker 1: knowledge that no longer exists, or that it's kind of

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Speaker 1: like traditional in the sense that it belongs to a

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Speaker 1: museum as opposed to it's alive and has adapted over

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Speaker 1: the years. Our knowledge systems are a form of science

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Speaker 1: if anything. They're like the longest living in science on

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Speaker 1: planet Earth because it has been kind of created or

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Speaker 1: passed down through generations. It has also adapteds. Our environments adapted.

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Speaker 1: Because you know, our indigenous science that probably our great

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Speaker 1: grandparents had, it's not the same that you know we

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Speaker 1: have because our environments have drastically changed because of climate change, urbanization,

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Speaker 1: and everything that collism introduced to our lands. And I

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Speaker 1: think that one of my biggest push is that indigenous

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Speaker 1: peoples are scientists and that oftentimes we are told, because

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Speaker 1: we live in under this desettler frameworks, that we have

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Speaker 1: to obtain degrees for our knowledge to be validated. But

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Speaker 1: you know, all of indigenous peoples who have that knowledge

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Speaker 1: to steward their lands, to co manage their resources with

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Speaker 1: their entire community tribes or pueblos, hold on to that

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Speaker 1: science that is the foundation of our existence and resistance.

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Speaker 1: They might not be peer review or published as much

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Speaker 1: as you know the Western sciences, but it holds as

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Speaker 1: much credibility as the Western sciences do. I was always

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Speaker 1: interested in trying to write a book that boyce my

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Speaker 1: father's story, especially history as a child soldier who fought

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Speaker 1: in the Civil War, and I think that once I

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Speaker 1: was able to get him to sit down and tell

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Speaker 1: me his whole story, it kind of like spark an

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Speaker 1: interest for me to write it. I wanted to be

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Speaker 1: able to share his story, but I also wanted to

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Speaker 1: be able to tie in the stories of my mother,

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Speaker 1: my grandmother, my aunts, my relatives, my community members, and

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Speaker 1: other people that I'm in community with, so that we

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Speaker 1: can amplify how indigenous rights, even if we're talking about

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Speaker 1: immigration rights, are all interconnected to our environment. Through the book,

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Speaker 1: I weave different scenarios or case studies of communities who

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Speaker 1: have led that movement, and hopefully that also shows people

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Speaker 1: and the readers that you know, it is something that

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Speaker 1: they can support instead of co opting or stealing, because

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Speaker 1: I also tends to happen right in the Western framework,

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Speaker 1: where people are like, oh, that's a great idea, let

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Speaker 1: me go steal it and name it something else, and

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Speaker 1: then pretend I'm the founder when it's like indigenous knowledgists

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Speaker 1: that were shared to certain people and then they take

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Speaker 1: that ownership. One of the examples that I can give

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Speaker 1: is permaculture. So permaculture is this like holistic way of

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Speaker 1: doing agriculture where you're not necessarily putting much labor into

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Speaker 1: the agricultural system, but the agricultural system is sustaining itself.

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Speaker 1: And when you look at the history of permaculture, it

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Speaker 1: was founded, you know, and I quote that founded by

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Speaker 1: a white man who went to Australia and learned from

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Speaker 1: some Aborigine communities, and permaculture then became this like really

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Speaker 1: expensive certificate that you can get. That's one of the

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Speaker 1: critiques that I make in the book on how we

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Speaker 1: should dismantle the fact that Indigenous peoples are seeing as

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Speaker 1: research subjects and areas of expertise rather than the scientists

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Speaker 1: and experts themselves, even without degrees. There's a lot of

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Speaker 1: research articles written about the Samplete community. But when I

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Speaker 1: have asked people in my community or did you know

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Speaker 1: this and that you know that was written about our community,

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Speaker 1: They're like, oh, I had never heard that. So that

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Speaker 1: shows you how many of the times Indigenous peoples are

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Speaker 1: used as the research subjects and not the research experts.

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Speaker 1: I'm really careful with, like not sharing any medicinal remedies

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Speaker 1: or sacred knowledge because it's kind of hard, right, because

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Speaker 1: you don't know who to trust. And I think that

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Speaker 1: being exposed to all these stories of co optation, our

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Speaker 1: knowledge theft made me a little bit more guarded on

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Speaker 1: the knowledge I will share. So I feel like I

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Speaker 1: always walked the fine line of sharing my Indigenous knowledge

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Speaker 1: with other people, because you know, it can either be

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Speaker 1: copt this stolen, or it also invalidated or dismissed. What

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Speaker 1: I want readers to take away from this book is

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Speaker 1: to learn more about the indigenous movements that are happening

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Speaker 1: across the Americas, because oftentimes we fail to recognize how

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Speaker 1: our certain identities contribute to sellar colonialism back in Latin America.

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Speaker 1: In the United States, we focus more on being oppressed

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Speaker 1: because we are oppressed as people of color. But when

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Speaker 1: we go back to Latin America, is after indigenous, black

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Speaker 1: and Indigenous people who are oppressed by you know, some

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Speaker 1: of us, And I think that hopefully that brings a

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Speaker 1: new perspective to the whole narrative of the oppressed and

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Speaker 1: the oppressor, and how we can work together to undo that.

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Speaker 1: One of the things that I talk about in the

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Speaker 1: book is that conservation is a Western construct because in

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Speaker 1: our languages, like if I were to try to translate

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Speaker 1: conservation to the Sybotech language or the Miotority language or

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Speaker 1: other languages that many Indigenous people speak, there is no

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Speaker 1: word that directly translates to conservation. Most of the words

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Speaker 1: that kind of tie or are interconnected to conservation focus

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Speaker 1: more on protection, like protecting our environment. Most of the

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Speaker 1: words in our languages hint towards healing rather then you know,

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Speaker 1: like conserving is not only that it cannot be directly

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Speaker 1: translated to our languages, but sometimes it comes in conflict

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Speaker 1: where a way of life and oftentimes in the name

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Speaker 1: of conservation. There is this oppression used against indigenous peoples,

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Speaker 1: especially when it comes to their inherited rights to have

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Speaker 1: access to certain natural resources. And we see that in

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Speaker 1: national parks. When national parks were created, it was under

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Speaker 1: this framework to conserve the natural, pristine wilderness, when in

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Speaker 1: reality there was a lot of indigenous communities who lived

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Speaker 1: in those lands that are now national parks that were exploited, oppressed,

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Speaker 1: and kind of removed from their ancestral lands. And I

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Speaker 1: think that it kind of shows the nuances that need

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Speaker 1: to be discussed in the National park system because a

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Speaker 1: lot of these monuments have names of violent people that

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Speaker 1: perpetated that violence against Indigenous communities that were violently ripped

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Speaker 1: off or remove from their lands.

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Speaker 3: So the project that.

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Speaker 1: I conducted for my dissertation was to indigenize restoration in

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Speaker 1: Discovery Park, located in Seattle, Washington, is the largest urban

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Speaker 1: park in the state of Washington, and that's an interesting

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Speaker 1: park because it has a really beautiful Indigenous history behind it.

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Speaker 1: I decided to use my PhD to try to restore

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Speaker 1: and heal some of those twenty acres of land. But

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Speaker 1: in that way, what I decided to do was to

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Speaker 1: amplify and centered the Indigenous ways of healing our earth.

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Speaker 1: And one of the teachings that our elders were able

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Speaker 1: to teach us to practice was that under Western conservation,

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Speaker 1: in basis species, they're like known as pests or weeds,

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Speaker 1: but for Indigenous communities, we should see them as displaced

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Speaker 1: relatives because there are someone's relatives that have been displaced

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Speaker 1: like many of us have I gotten a lot of

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Speaker 1: fights with the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department because you know,

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Speaker 1: even the way that they wanted us to take care

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Speaker 1: of the weeds was different than the way we were

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Speaker 1: told to take care of the weeds by our elders,

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Speaker 1: because you know, for them, it's like their weeds they

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Speaker 1: just have to be removed versus you know us. We

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Speaker 1: will do prayers and we will ask for their permission

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Speaker 1: to leave you know, the land so that native species

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Speaker 1: can come back in. So it was a lot of like,

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't say, like really bad conflict, but a lot

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Speaker 1: of like fights with Seattle Parks because of the way

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Speaker 1: that we practice restoration wasn't aligned to their rule book.

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Speaker 1: One of the interesting metaphors that I use in the

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Speaker 1: book is that banana trees are invasive to Central America,

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Speaker 1: yet we have embraced them our relatives, right, And I

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Speaker 1: think that that's a metaphor that I use for my

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Speaker 1: lift experiences and the lift experiences of many displaced indigenous

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Speaker 1: peoples that as banana trees, we have also been displaced

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Speaker 1: from our ancestral lands. Yet we adapt to our environments,

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Speaker 1: and in this case, you know, sometimes we're welcome into

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Speaker 1: those environments. Like in the case of banana trees, like

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Speaker 1: you know in Central America, they have been used in

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Speaker 1: our traditional foods to make our tamalis platanos. We you know,

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Speaker 1: we fry them. Yet they're displaced relatives, right, They're not

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Speaker 1: native species. They come from Southeast Asia, but they were introduced.

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Speaker 1: And I think, like banana trees, displaced indigenous peoples, we're

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Speaker 1: forced to adapt to our new environments and hopefully, you know,

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Speaker 1: for some of us, we're working to become welcome into

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Speaker 1: those new environments. One of the teachers on my grandma

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Speaker 1: always told me was that anywhere I walked that wasn't

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Speaker 1: my lands, I wasn't a welcome guest, right, because it

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Speaker 1: was like, we're going into other people's homes, and those

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Speaker 1: other people are the indigenous peoples whose lands were walking on.

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Speaker 1: And I think that one of the things she always

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Speaker 1: told me to think about was how do you become

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Speaker 1: a welcome gain? Yes, right, because I have to still

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Speaker 1: navigate that as a displaced indigenous woman, and the same

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Speaker 1: way that I want people to form those relationships with

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Speaker 1: my communities once they're in Wahaka. One of the beauties

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Speaker 1: of being an Indigenous instructor, especially in the college setting,

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Speaker 1: is that I can support other Indigenous students. I want

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Speaker 1: to inspire students to find that sense of belonging because

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Speaker 1: like I always crave to have an Indigenous professor teaching

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Speaker 1: me about the environmental sciences, but I never got that.

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Speaker 1: In a way, Sometimes I question, like, oh, do I

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Speaker 1: really want to become a professor? I go for ten years,

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Speaker 1: But then I think about my younger self, and I

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Speaker 1: think about that eighteen year old who crave that indigenous

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Speaker 1: professor that she could approach after class and talk to them, right,

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Speaker 1: And I think that being an Indigenous instructor now kind

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Speaker 1: of allows me to cater to those students.

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Speaker 2: This episode was produced by Victoria Strada and edited by

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Speaker 2: Julio Ricardo Barela. It was mixed by Gabriella Biez. The

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Speaker 2: Latino USA team includes Andrea Lopez Crusado, Marta Martinez, Daisy Contreras,

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Speaker 2: Mike Sergent, Julia Ta Martinelli, Patricia sulbrand Gini Montalvo, Alejandra

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Speaker 2: Sanlassard Rinaldo Leanos Junior, and Julia Rocha, with help from

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Speaker 2: Raoul Perez.

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Speaker 4: Our supervising senior engineer is Stephanie Lebau. Our assistant senior

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Speaker 4: Engineer is Julia Caruso. Our associate engineer is jj Carubin.

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Speaker 4: Our digital editor is Luis Luna.

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Speaker 2: Our fellows are Elisa Baena, Monica Morales and Andrew Vignellis.

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Speaker 2: Our theme music was composed by Zaniel Roubinos. I'm your

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Speaker 2: host and executive producer Marienno Hossan. Join us again on

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Speaker 2: our next episode. In the meantime, look for us on

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Speaker 2: all of your social media at Guerda Des and I'll

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Speaker 2: see you soon. COO.

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Speaker 3: Funding for Latino USA is coverage of a culture of

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Speaker 3: Health is made possible in part by a grant from

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Speaker 3: the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Latino USA is made possible

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Speaker 3: in part by California Endowment building a strong State by

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Speaker 3: improving the health of all Californians and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I know that.

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Speaker 1: Okay. So the title of the book is Fresh Banana

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Speaker 1: Leafs Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science